


The Price of the Deal

by Shadowmaster68



Series: A small legion of weather proof ships [22]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Bill's Meddling changes timeline, It's not super different, M/M, slight AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-02
Updated: 2016-09-02
Packaged: 2018-08-12 12:17:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7934305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowmaster68/pseuds/Shadowmaster68
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bill shows up to the Northwest party, and his presence, of course, meddles with the events.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Price of the Deal

**Author's Note:**

> Another one that never got betaed. My apologies for all grammar mistakes you encounter because of this.

Dipper really didn’t want to be at the Northwest party, but Mabel had really wanted to come, and there was no way that he could turn down an opportunity for her. She had been talking about Pacifica nonstop since the mini-golf tournament that they had done, and while she wouldn’t outwardly admit it, Dipper knew his sister well enough to know that she was crushing, hard. He wasn’t sure if Pacifica was into Mabel or not, but this was a chance for her, and there was no way that he would pass it up. Besides, a chance to hunt ghosts, even if Pacifica was just jumping at nothing, this was something that he would get to hold over her head, so points for that he supposed.

What he hadn’t expected when all of the nobles, lords, and just plain other rich folk were allowed into the manor, was for someone with a far to familiar color scheme to be there. He lost the familiar looking individual rather quickly in the crowd, and he frowned and pushed it to the side, there were more important things that he needed to take care of, that was, until they caught his eye. Suddenly, whatever ghost there was at Northwest Manor meant very little to him. That yellow color scheme, with a black tie, top hat, and cane was just all to obvious to Dipper, even the smug grin on his face easily matched they way his voice always sounded when he dealt with him.

Dipper wanted nothing more than to storm over to him and demand to know what he was up to, but was beaten to the punch as he excused himself from whatever his current conversation was and began working his way toward Dipper.

“Pine Tree!” The obnoxious voice called out as he approached. “I would say that I didn’t expect to see you here, but I already know everything.”

“Bill! What are you doing here?” Dipper demanded, glaring furiously at the taller man. He was wondering who it was that Bill had possessed, he shouldn’t be able to exist in their world.

“Why should I tell you?” Bill said with a shrug and a smirk. “How about we make a deal? You can ask me any question you want, I’ll answer it, and in return, you let me protect you tonight.”

“Protect me?”

“You’re a lot more important for me than you realize Pine Tree.”

Dipper ignored the awkward wording, assuming that Bill was trying to get inside Dipper’s, throw him off track. “So you want to protect me, and in return, you’ll answer my questions?”

Bill gave a smile and said “That about sums it up, so what do you say?”

Dipper frowned for a second before saying, “You have to answer my questions honestly, no tricks, no lies.”

Bill rolled his eyes and said, “I wasn’t going to lie anyway, but fine, I’ll protect you, and you get honest answers, deal?” He asked as he extended his hand.

Dipper studied it for a moment, as though the hand would reveal to him what tricks the demon had up its sleeve.

“Where’s the fire?” Dipper asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

“I figured that would be a bit conspicuous. It’s just as binding as normal ones,” Bill said as he rolled his eyes. “If you’re not interested, then I’ll go about my business and let what happens happen.” Bill moved as though to leave before Dipper grabbed his arm.

“Fine! I’ll take your deal,” He said quickly, as though he were worried others would care. He didn’t know that Bill had cast a small bubble of silence around them, preventing anyone else from hearing them.

Bill gladly stuck out his hand again, his smile practically glowing beneath his molten gold eyes, that just screamed how smug he felt. Dipper took the hand and gave it a single shake, and Bill gave a quick snap of his fingers, releasing the spell of silence over them. “So what questions do you have for me Pine Tree?”

“What are you doing here?” Dipper asked immediately, no doubt that he had a list of questions all running through his mind. Undoubtedly he had been making it up as he had been deciding on whether he actually would take the deal or not.

“I’m here to renew a few deals and strike up a few other ones as well. Make sure my plans really do fall through the way they should,” Bill said nonchalantly, starting to walk away from Dipper, heading toward the snack table instead. He was sure that the tween was following him and sure enough he was proven right (again) with the next question.

“What exactly are you planning?” Dipper asked curiously.

Bill smirked to himself, though he easily hid it behind a quick drink of one of the offered beverages, wine perhaps? Definitely expensive, he could practically taste the dollars that had gone into the thing. “The end of the world,” he said easily enough.

“You’re planning the end of the world!” Dipper exclaimed, before quickly throwing his hands over his mouth, looking around to see who might have heard him. If any of the other people around him had noticed his little outburst, they didn’t express any interest.

“Well yeah, what else is an immortal Dream Demon supposed to do with their spare time?” Bill asked, leaning casually against the snack table.

“I don’t know,” Dipper muttered looking distraught at the information that had been passed on to him. “What do you want to protect me from?”   
“The ghost of course!”

“Why would you have to protect me from the ghost? I didn’t imagine it to be beyond a level two or three ghost.”

Bill laughed heavily. “D-don’t tell the Woodsman that. He, he might try to take the axe out of his head and put it in yours!”

“The Woodsman?”

“The ghost,” Bill said with a roll of his eyes, “Duh. It’s not like you know the Woodsman that consorts with the Beast anyway.”

“What are you talking about?” Dipper asked with a frown.

Bill waved his hand and said, “Don’t worry about it. Different dimension, different universe, all kinds of things that you wouldn’t really understand Pine Tree.”

Dipper frowned at the demon. Different…universes? Sure different dimensions made since, from what he gathered from Mabel when she explained what she and Soos had seen, Bill had been summoned forth from somewhere…else, entirely. He hadn’t just be hanging out reclusively in Gravity Falls, but had been perhaps, locked away in his own dimension. Definitely a different one at the very least.

“How, how many universes are there?” Dipper asked, Bill spiking his curiosity.

“An infinite number, of course!” Bill said cheerfully.

Dipper shook his head, he was getting off track with all this new information, he needed to focus. “What is the ghost, this Woodsman, what is he after?”

“Revenge! It’s why most spirits come back these days. You mortals and all your hatred, so much fun!” Bill cracked happily.

“Revenge? Revenge on who, and for what? Most people here haven’t been around long enough to warrant revenge from a ghost, except maybe the mayor,” Dipper wondered aloud.

Bill snickered and said, “Oh don’t worry, he has more than enough skeletons in his closet to deserve what’s coming for him. As for the Woodsman, he’s after the Northwest’s.”

“What?! Sure they’re not the best people in the world, but what they could have possibly done to warrant the dead coming back to seek revenge on them?”

Bill sighed, and said, “Well, I can spoil that story for you if you want.” He was already tiring of this deal. This kid had a ton of questions, but he seemed to be focusing on the boring ones. He could nudge Pine Tree back to the interesting questions, he was just dying to talk about some of the numerous different dimensions that he had wandered, or some of the tales he had from hiding in different universes.

But he had to answer the questions that Pine Tree asked, and he disliked being interrupted. “How are you supposed to be making deals if you’re protecting me from this ghost?” Dipper asked, breaking Bill’s train of thought.

“I’m a powerful demon kid, I am free to be in multiple places at once. Just cause you humans can’t do that doesn’t mean that I’m bound by your ‘laws of physics.’”

“What do you mean?”

Bill just rolled his eyes and grabbed Dipper suddenly. “Let’s dance,” Bill said instead, shocking Dipper to his roots.

“Wait! Wait what?!” Dipper practically shouted as Bill easily pulled the tween along with him over to where the other guests were dancing. “Bill! Stop it! I can’t dance!”

Bill gave a smirk, “You don’t have to dance, not really. You’ll just have to follow my lead, it’s easy. Watch,” and from there Bill began to lead the younger man in time with the music. Dipper seemed to flail for the first song, but began to get the gist of it during the second, and by the third he was able to easily follow along the taller demon, only stepping on his foot when he chose to do so, reminding Bill that he didn’t really want to be dancing with him.

“Now that you can dance without staring at our feet, what other questions did you have?” Bill asked easily as he continued to lead Dipper through the movements.

“Couldn’t I have kept asking over on the sidelines?” Dipper asked, clearly sounding exasperated, but didn’t try to break away from the demon.

“You could have, but you would have just kept drawing more attention to us,” Bill answered easily.

“I thought you loved the spotlight?”

Bill smirked and said, “There is a time for the spotlight, and a time for subtlety. I’m might have a preference towards center stage and the theatrics involved with it, but if taking care of things backstage furthers my agenda, then so be it.”

Dipper frowned at Bill, for all that he knew him, Bill had never really seemed subtle. Sure he was deceitful, and a liar, but there hadn’t been a time that he could think of where Bill hadn’t been as theatric as he could get away with. Bill was a brash and loud being, easily one that rivaled Mabel, and Dipper had a hard time imagining him doing anything in a subtle way. Heck, even when the demon was possessing anyone, there was a clear and easy to see difference with the way the person he was possessing looked, the yellow eyes and slits instead of pupils. “You know how to be subtle?” Dipper finally asked, clearly disbelieving of the demon.

Bill sighed, before answering, “Everyone knows how to be subtle Pine Tree, even me. I just said that. I know trees are dense, but seriously, this is ridiculous, even for you Pine Tree.”

Dipper blushed again, he really needed to stop reacting like that when Bill poet fun at him, undoubtedly it was giving Bill far to much amusement (it was). “So what am I needed for in your plan?” Dipper finally asking one of the questions that had been stuck in his mind since Bill had brought it up.

Bill gave a smirk and said, “That’s an omission. I would hate to spoil the surprise for you Pine Tree, but trust me it’s going to be great!”

Dipper gave Bill an annoyed frown but let it go. He doubted he could get the demon to explain anyway. He instead looked through the crowd, and spotted Pacifica off to the side, giving him a strange look. “I need to go Bill,” he said softly. Some part of him really didn’t want to go, didn’t really want to leave the arms of his dance partner. Maybe the whole ghost business would sort itself out, and he could just stay here.

In Bill’s arms.

Where he was warm.

Where he was content.

…

Where he was in the arms of a psychopath! What was he doing?! It had to be another one of Bill’s tricks, or a spell of some kind. He needed to get away from the demon, he had a ghost to hunt, level ten or not. He shoved Bill away and quick moved over to where Pacifica had been waiting, quickly derailing her questions by mentioning that they still had a ghost to catch. Bill chuckled lightly to himself before he returned to the party, looking to see if their were any other deals that he could make that would allow him to further his end goals, or at the very least would bring him some amusement while he waited for the events of the night to unfold.

***

This was exactly how the night was supposed to go. He knew his very presence would throw the entire night off, but so far all he had seen was that Pine Tree had spent less time with the Northwest girl, which had been his goal from the get go. He wanted the group of people that could possibly defeat him to be separated, there to be a big enough gap between them that he had nothing to fear from them. That, and he also didn’t want Pine Tree and Lama to get anywhere near as close as they were supposed to. He had his reasons, as selfish as they might be.

But then of course, the Woodsman would throw everything off. Instead of attacking Pine Tree the way he was supposed to, the way he normally did, he struck the Northwest girl first, turning her to wood (so many horrible puns could be made with this ENTIRE situation), before he even looked at Dipper. The spirit fired his beam at the young man and Bill knew he had to intervene. This night would have been a complete and total waste of time otherwise. He appeared before the tween and easily intercepted the beam with his cane. The item began to turn to a brown and attempted to sprout branches off of it, before Bill looked at it with a touch of disgust and quickly infused his power back through it, slamming the end to the ground for a dramatic touch. His own power quickly overwhelmed the Woodsman’s and reverted the unnecessary item back to its original form.

The Woodsman frowned at the new intruder, not recognizing the Dream Demon in a human form, and quickly followed up with a couple more attempts at turning the new intruder to wood, Bill had to fight to keep himself from laughing at this unfortunate and highly amusing situation, and he quickly copied what he had done before, and advanced easily enough despite the ghost’s repeated attempts to drive him back. He finally reached the spectral being and grabbed his face, pulling him close.

“I don’t mind you not recognizing my current form, but you messed everything up, and now it’s my job to fix it,” Bill hissed at the specter, whose eyes widened immensely as he realized just who it was that he had ticked off.

“L-lord Cipher, if I had known that you were here-“ The spirit attempted to say.

“You would have what? There were very specific patterns that you were supposed to follow and my being here should not have thrown them so off course! You’re lucky I can still salvage the situation, otherwise this, would be even more painful.”

As Bill finished saying that, he tightened his grip on the face of the ghost, and suddenly azure flames started burning away at his feet, enticing screams from the vengeful spirit. Slowly, the feet of the dead burned away to ash, before the flames spread upward and gradually turned the body into ash, until all that remained was the whimpering skull in Bill’s hand. Bill looked the head dead in the eye and calmly said, “I may prefer nightmares, but I do find a certain satisfaction in dreams. They’re such inspiration things to mortals, and they make them so much easier to manipulate if you tempt them with it. You dream of vengeance, and unfortunately for you, you shall never truly realize it. Now, return to where you’ve came,” and as he finished speaking, he crushed the skull in his hand, allow for one final sharp yell to fill the room, before it fell silent, only Dipper and Bill left in it.

Dipper cautiously approached Bill, who was letting the last bit of dust fall from his hand to join the pile. Bill gave an easy wave of his hand and the pile quickly shifted into a circle around him. “What are you-“

“Quiet” Bill said evenly, silencing Dipper as the demon proceeded to sit down in the middle of the circle, crossing his legs and closing his eyes for a moment. He mumbled a few things to himself that Dipper couldn’t quite hear, despite practically being on top of the demon, before his eyes shot open suddenly, and the ash around him shot away, taking with it the trees and the forrest-ness of the room around them. The people were still wooden statues, but the place looked normal otherwise.

“What did you do?” Dipper finally worked up the courage to ask.

“I managed to remove his cosmetic changes, it was little more than a display of power for him, make him feel good about himself. That sort of thing,” Bill said with a slight huff, and though he wasn’t panting, Dipper did notice he seemed to be breathing a bit heavier than he had been before.”

“What about the people?” Dipper asked, “Can’t you do anything about them?”

“I can’t. That was actually part of his curse, it has to be lifted by the conditions for them that he himself set up.”  “So, a Northwest has to open the doors to the public?” Dipper questioned.

“And that’s not going to happen!” Preston Northwest shouted as he came up to the pair, his wife slightly behind him. “Surely, Lord Cipher, there is a way that we can settle this matter without involving the riffraff of this town.”

Bill pinched the bridge of his nose and said, “You really don’t listen do you. I just said that the only way this is going to work is to break the curse. Unless you want to stain this place with even more blood.”

“Surely the alternative can’t be that bad!” He argued, looking quite sure of himself.

Bill gained his signature smirk and said calmly, “Truthfully, I don’t know how this curse really worked, and therefore can’t counteract it like I normally would be able to. I know over a billion counter-curses, but using any but the correct one would make this situation a whole lot worse than it already is. The only other thing that I could do would be to start dissecting the cursed individuals, and that would not go over very well either.”

“So there truly is no way to rectify this situation?” Preston said, sorrow resonating throughout his voice.

“Seriously! Are you so worried about what the towns people think of you that you aren’t willing to let them in to save the lives of everyone here?” Dipper shouted at the member of high society that stood before him.

Preston wheeled around on the younger man, anger lacing his every word as he shouted, “I will not have my family’s reputation dragged through the mud for anyone! We have strived for to long and to hard to let it all go to shame in one night!”

“You must not have much of a reputation if all it takes is one night to ruin it,” Dipper muttered, earning himself a renewed glare from the elder. “Besides, wouldn’t it do more damage if all of these known high class people go missing after coming here? I’m sure you insisted that they should be as known as they could. What would happen if they learned that people were killed here on top of that?”

Preston looked down at Dipper, a look of dread and horror flooding his face. “So, if you think about it, letting the people of the town in really is your best chance, it does the least amount of damage to your reputation if you really think about it.”

Preston still stood there, paralyzed by indecision, and Bill finally gave a sigh. “If you won’t listen to the kid, then here, how about I make you a deal. I will remove one of your IOUs, if you go ahead and let town in.”

Preston looked at Bill, and he finally relented, extending his hand as though he had done so a million times now. Bill’s own hand light anew with his blue flames, and the two easily shook hands. While Preston almost limped towards the lever for the gate and the door, he also seemed to bear just a little bit less of the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Dipper looked up at Bill, who didn’t look happy, just watching the Northwest man go through with his end of the deal, a light scowl on his face. “I’m sure some part of you is just dying to ask me something. Our deal may be over, but I’ll let you get in one final go before I take off.”

“Why do that deal? You weren’t going to gain anything from that deal. You actually lost something instead. So, why do that deal?”

Bill sighed, and right as the doors opened, and the people began to return to normal. He left. He left Dipper standing there to be greeted and hailed as a hero by his sister and her friends. But as he left, he said the only words that would be true for that situation. After all, he had already paid the price of the deal.

“For you Pine Tree. All for you.”

**Author's Note:**

> So, that was a thing. I suppose its not as romance heavy as my normal pieces, but I don't know if I can really make it more romantic. Wasn't really the point of this piece. What was the point of this piece then? You tell me, because I have no clue.
> 
> There wasn't anything that really inspired this one either, it just came to me. I really like Bill and Dipper interactions, and I liked the idea of giving Dipper a free pass to ask questions that I like the answers to. This is the sort of deal that I really think Dipper would jump on, no matter how cautious he tries to be about it. He's so interested in searching for answers, that I don't think he would at all be able to pass this up.
> 
> Anyway, as I mentioned yesterday, college and work are kicking my ass, that hasn't changed in the last 24 hours, and I still want to scream and shout and let it all out. In better news, I release the pieces that I write out of stress because of this. I make no guarantees on how good they are, but that's basically what's happening at this point.


End file.
